


Unto Eternity

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt!Sam, M/M, Post-Season/Series 08 AU, emotional!Dean, implied wincest, major character death-but when does a winchester stay dead?, serious emotional whumping, tons of brotherly love and feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The Trials had nearly killed Sam, and Gadreel had almost finished off the rest. Sam had never completely recovered. He’d settled into a much leaner, lighter form than he’d had even as a teenager. He was still strong. He’d regained some of that but not all, and now the thing inside him was draining him of everything he’d managed to recoup.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic contains mpreg!Sam, however, I have left it out of the tags because, while a central theme, it is not the main point of the story. There is no graphic pregnancy/birth of any nature. This is a very supernatural, nay celestial, pregnancy/birth, so nothing is as you'd expect. But you have been warned if you have a serious aversion to this sort of thing.
> 
> Since the inspiration for this comes from multiple sources and this system will apparently only let me credit one author at a time, their names are going here, and you really need to go check them out:  
>  
> 
> [It's Really Happening](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3207401) by ohthedestiel, without whose interesting take on a birth between human and angel this work would not exist  
>  
> 
> [Mashiach Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/41208) by Askance, because I started thinking about this series early on while I was writing this piece, and I have no doubt there is some real influence from it in here somewhere. Go READ this. You must. And bill me for the box of tissue you'll need. No, really, have tissues on hand. I'm serious.

_The present…_

 

Dean leaned in the door, arms crossed, watching his brother sleep. 

It was about all Sam did these days. Sleep. He didn’t have the energy for anything else. They hadn’t been on a hunt in weeks. Everything that came their way got passed off to other hunters until it was pretty much common knowledge that—for now, at least—the Winchesters were off the docket. Dean didn’t like it much. He hated leaving other people to do the job he felt was his, but as Sam had pointed out repeatedly over the last few months, Dean had a habit of thinking everything was his job. He had cabin fever, too. He was itching to get out and at least go dig a few graves and gank a few ghosts, but Sam needed him here, even if all he was doing was sleeping.

Dean wasn’t going to leave Sam alone in his condition. Not when he was so close.

“Dean…”

Dean perked up at the whisper of his name and came into the room quietly, settling on the edge of the bed as slow and easy as his big frame could manage. He reached a hand out and ever so gently brushed a fingertip against Sam’s translucent skin.

“I won’t break, Dean.” 

Sam’s voice was shot. It was whisper-thin and barely audible and Dean didn’t know if it was just because of his current condition or the fact that they could barely keep him hydrated. 

“Could have fooled me,” Dean replied just as quietly. He was afraid to make a sound that was too loud around Sam anymore. He was afraid it would shatter his little brother’s fragile form. “Do you hurt?”

“No. No, not at all,” Sam said. He still hadn’t opened his eyes, like it was just too much effort to do so. 

Dean shook his head, bewildered. Sam looked like he was dying. He looked like he should be suffering pain that would break a lesser man to pieces to go with his extreme pallor and his gaunt, emaciated body, and his sunken features. Dean barely recognized him anymore, and he hated that more than anything. 

The Trials had nearly killed Sam, and Gadreel had almost finished off the rest. Sam had never completely recovered. He’d settled into a much leaner, lighter form than he’d had even as a teenager. He was still strong. He’d regained some of that but not all, and now the thing inside him was draining him of everything he’d managed to recoup. 

“Dean, don’t blame him. You can’t,” Sam said.

Dean flinched a little, fingers stuttering for a second in their absent stroking of Sam’s arm. “How do you even know it’s a ‘him,’ Sam?”

Sam pulled off something that might be related to a smile, but it was so tired and trembling at the edges that anyone else would probably think he was about to cry. “I don’t. But I didn’t want to just keep thinking of him as an ‘it’ either.” Sam paused for a breath, pried his eyes open just a little to meet Dean’s pained gaze. “Thought you’d like a boy.”

Dean’s throat closed up and for a second his fingers tightened on Sam’s too thin arm until his brother flinched the tiniest bit and moaned in protest to the pressure. Dean released him immediately and ground the heels of his palms in to his eyes to quash the tears gathering there. 

“Jesus, Sam. Jesus…I don’t…I can’t….”

“I know.” 

Sam moved his hand across the bed and crawled his fingers up onto Dean’s thigh, too weak to actually lift the attached limb. Dean caught it in his own and raised it to press a tender kiss on the back of Sam’s hand. All his veins were standing out there under the skin in a garish network of purple and blue, the tendons protruding like cording all along the structure of his bones. 

“Do you, Sammy?” Dean pressed another kiss to Sam’s knuckles and then held the thin appendage against his hot cheek. “Do you, really? Do you know that…if you can’t survive this…if you can’t hold on…then you’re going to be leaving me alone? I don’t get anything out of this, Sam. Nothing. Cas has to take…th-the baby…and you’ll be dead, and what will I be left with? What will it all have been for, Sam? Tell me. Because I sure as hell can’t understand.”

Dean was crying now, and he didn’t care. There was too much on him right now. He’d seen Sam die—too many goddamn times—but he’d never sacrificed himself like this, not for something like this. It had always been about the bigger picture, saving mankind, and the universe, and all that shit; never just them, never just for what they were to each other. 

“Please, Sam…please,” Dean pressed his cheek harder against his brother’s hand. “Just…let it go. Please, just let it go. Cas said you could. He said it was all up to you. It… _he_ …is like any other angel—all you have to do is tell him to go.”

Sam rocked his head in the tiniest motion against the pillow, eyes drifting closed, a look of real pain flitting across his features. “I can’t, Dean. You know I can’t. He’s…part of us. I can’t destroy that. You can’t ask me to.”

“What part of me is he?!” Dean wanted to yell, but he forced the words out in a desperate, angry whisper instead, holding tight to Sam’s hand, so tight that his brother hissed in pain a moment later and Dean instantly gentled his grip, petting Sam’s bruised skin and kissing his knuckles between words. “I haven’t been able to…to help you, to _be_ with you in this. You’ve done this by yourself, Sam. Like everything, you took it on yourself, and left me in the goddamn cold!”

Dean wanted to kick himself. He wanted to run out of the bunker and up the gravel path into the hills behind it and find someplace he could scream his brains out. His brother was slipping away from him, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. 

“Dean, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….”

“No.” Dean took a deep, slow breath. “No… _I’m_ sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t have said that. It was…cruel. I just….”

Sam made a tremendous effort to squeeze Dean’s hand in reassurance, and a fresh surge of tears burned the backs of Dean’s eyes at the immediate trembling in Sam’s whole arm that followed his exertion. 

“Dean, I wish I could explain it. I really do. I wish I could help you understand—that I could help you feel what I’m feeling—but I don’t know how.”

Dean tipped over on the bed, kept hold of Sam’s hand, and curved his body to his brother’s like he had done since Sam was only two feet long and fit into the hollow of Dean’s belly at the age of four. He felt the heat radiating from Sam. It was the only other outward sign that any of this was happening other than Sam’s looking like Death warmed over and being weaker than a newborn runt of the litter. He let his other hand skate over Sam’s chest and stomach, down to rest on his flat belly. He wanted to _feel_ something, to understand, to be able to make the connection with the life growing inside his brother, but there was nothing for him, and that cut him to the bone. 

Sam’s hand slipped up to cover his, pressed down a little. Dean ducked his head down the rest it on Sam’s boney shoulder.

“Don’t leave me, yet, baby brother,” he whispered. “Not yet.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was the feeling Sam had known all his life: that his brother was his whole world, and without him there was no point to his existence. Sam had the instinctive feeling that what was inside him was symbolic of all of that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not make Sophia up, but I did take some extreme liberties. Go read about her [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_\(Gnosticism\))

_A year ago…to the day…_

 

Sam had been feeling off all day. Not sick _off_ , or hexed or cursed _off,_ just…strange off. 

He leaned on the doorframe of the bathroom with a hand to his stomach. He couldn’t pinpoint the feeling inside him, but it was like there was a tiny little electrical storm in his belly, sending zinging sparks through his entire body, making all his nerve endings tingle and fizz with energy. He kept coming back to the bathroom thinking he was going to be sick because his brain evidently couldn’t figure out how to translate the signals his body was sending, but then he’d take a breath and realize he didn’t feel sick anymore, he felt…something else.

“Sam, I think you should lay down. You look like shit.”

Sam turned halfway back into the room, not letting go of the door. The air was sparking with tiny stars, and he felt a little lightheaded, at least that’s what his brain was telling him to feel. He gave Dean a sardonic smile.

“Thanks.”

Dean shrugged, looking up at Sam from under his lashes, and then dropping his gaze back to the laptop screen. “I’m just sayin’.”

“Right.” Sam let go of the door and made his way a little unsteadily to the bed. He sat down, still holding his stomach. 

Dean frowned at him. “Sam, seriously though…you doin’ okay?”

“Yeah….” Sam stared at the floor, not really seeing it, focused on the feeling in his belly. It was just weird and warm, and…right. “I’m okay.”

Dean went back to the screen again, but his eyes kept cutting over to Sam every few seconds. “Maybe you got food poisoning.”

“No, Dean, I do not have food poisoning. I haven’t even thrown up, for heaven’s sake.” Sam dropped his hand a little, feeling for the epicenter of that odd knot of energy inside him.

“Well, you sure look like you could…at any second,” Dean said. “In fact, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you’d just pull that trashcan a little closer. I am _not_ cleaning up if you yak all over the floor.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but it was an automatic response, his attention wasn’t really there.

“It feels like…there’s something inside me.”

“What?”

Sam looked up. He hadn’t really meant to say that out loud. Dean’s face had blanched, and Sam had his one-hundred percent undivided attention now.

“What do you mean something _inside_ you?” Dean was already pushing out of his chair, coming to kneel in front of Sam, covering the hand that he still had pressed to his belly, concern all blended up with fear apparent in his sharp green gaze. 

Sam sighed. “Dean, don’t freak out. It’s…okay.”

“Okay?” Dean scowled. Hard. “What about something being _inside_ you that shouldn’t be, is _okay_?”

“Who said it shouldn’t be?”

Sam was surprised at himself for saying it, and Dean was shocked into momentary silence, only able to stare at his younger brother like he’d suddenly grown a second head. He spluttered a moment, like he was revving up for a good tantrum when a soft burst of wingbeats accompanied by the scent of lilac and a spring breeze interrupted him. 

Dean turned, only enough to growl at Castiel’s entrance, but not enough to take his hand from Sam’s.

“You know, for not being able to track us, you do a fucking good job of finding us, Cas.”

Cas shrugged a little apologetically and tilted his chin at Sam. “He told me where you’d be.”

Dean spared Cas a glare and then turned back to Sam. Sam just tossed a shoulder casually in the face of Dean’s simmering anger.

“Dean, I think I found—.”

“Not right now, Cas, we’ve—.”

“Before you both go off—.”

All three of them spoke at the same time.

Cas cut himself off and stared at Sam. Dean was cut off by Sam’s sudden gasp, and Sam was cut off by the energy that rippled outward from beneath the spot where his and Dean’s hands were still pressing into his midsection. 

“Sam?” Dean leaned in, his free hand going to Sam’s bicep, squeezing down so hard it would probably leave a bruise. “Sammy?”

Sam had hunched forward, his brain confused and running scared at the cacophony of signals it was getting from his body that weren’t translating because there was no reference manual to go by, so it was doing the only thing it could that promised a quick reaction and told him he was in pain. Sam fought back, though, swallowed hard, waited for the filters to kick in and then relaxed a little when he started to regain control.

Dean’s face was urgent, his eyes terrified. Sam gripped his shoulder, met his gaze. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I promise.”

“Sam, I—.”

“I don’t believe it.” 

Cas’ reverent whisper cut across whatever Dean had been about to say. Both men turned to look at him. He was staring at Sam the way one might look at their idol, if their idol was six-five, rangy, floppy haired, and had a days worth of stubble on his jaw. Dean, if he was thinking straight, might have said something snarky about Cas looking like he’d just met the love of his life, but he was too concerned about Sam to bother. It didn’t escape Sam’s notice, though, that for the first time since he’d met Cas, the angel actually looked…thrown, and there was something other than the usual complacent acceptance on his face, which was so rare that Sam couldn’t put his finger down on the last time he’d seen it, if he ever had. 

“What?” Dean demanded. “What can’t you believe? Because Sam just said—.”

“Sophia.”

Dean pulled a face. “No…Sam.”

Cas gave a quick shake of his head, eyes darting to Dean, but then back to Sam. “Sophia?”

“What the hell are you talking about, Cas!” Dean exploded upward so fast it almost threw Sam off balance and he scrabbled at Dean’s arm to right himself. Dean gripped him tight while still seething at Castiel.

Cas stumbled a step and dropped boneless into the chair by the TV, eyes glued to Sam like he hadn’t seen him in years and couldn’t drink enough of him in to satisfy his memory. 

“Cas,” Dean snarled in warning. “You better come clean because it looks like you know something about what’s going on here, and—.”

“Dean, give him a break,” Sam said, blushing a little under Cas’ steady gaze, fighting the urge to squirm. “He looks…really shocked. Cas? You all right?”

Cas shook his head slowly. “How did this happen? Why would she choose you?”

“She? She who?” Dean asked looking from Cas to Sam and back. “What did _who_ choose?”

Sam tugged on Dean’s arm to silence him. Dean opted for sliding down on the bed beside his brother and leaning in close, still keeping a hand on him. 

“Cas, who is ‘Sophia’?”

Cas swept his eyes over Sam from head to foot and back again. “Sophia is…wisdom,” he intoned, like he was reciting something sacred. “She is purported to be the female aspect of God, taken form in the Holy Spirit. She is the bride of Christ.”

Dean stared, squinted, tucked his chin back a fraction in disbelief. “And she’s here? With us?”

“Not all of her,” Cas said. “She is never just one thing. She cannot be embodied as a whole, but there is a part of her….” Cas slid out of the chair and approached Sam slowly, getting down on one knee and leaning forward to touch the back of Sam’s hand where it still pressed tight against his middle with the softest brush of fingertips. “In Sam.”

“ _In_ Sam? Cas, what the hell!” Dean reached to push Cas away, but Sam moaned in that moment and slipped sideways into Dean’s arms. “Sam? Sam!” Dean wrapped his brother tight into his side and cradled his head in the crook of his neck. “Cas, you better the hell start talkin’.”

Cas shuffled forward on his knees a little so he could rest a hand against Sam’s chest and then his forehead.

“You said it— _she_ —was inside him. Is it making him sick?” Dean asked, voice breaking a little. He couldn’t handle this. Not this soon. He’d finally gotten Sam back, as much as there was left to get, and it was enough. God, he’d sworn it was enough, but he couldn’t lose it now. 

“Not as such,” Cas said, but his attention was focused on Sam. “Sam, are you in pain?”

Sam breathed deep once and then again, unburying his face from Dean’s neck so he could look at Cas. “No. No there’s no pain. I feel…full.”

“What?” Dean brushed back Sam’s hair, more to keep his shaking hands busy than to get it out of Sam’s face. “Sam, what does that mean? It doesn’t make sense.”

Cas just nodded, his old half-spark of a smile coming back. “That would be…an apt description.”

“Cas….” This time Dean’s voice was more than warning. There was a whisper of a threat and a promise.

Cas spared Dean a glance. There was a shadow of the old condescension there. “Sam is pregnant.”

Dean stared at Cas for a long minute, counted to ten, took a breath, and repeated the process. “Excuse me?”

Cas shrugged unevenly. “It is the best…metaphor.”

“Back up…. So, Sam is _metaphorically_ pregnant, or _actually_ pregnant?”

“Both.”

“What!”

“I haven’t seen this happen since the time of Christ,” Cas said. “Which is not to say that it has not, but it is very rare.”

“Wait, what are we talking about here? _The_ virgin birth?”

“The Holy Spirit was responsible for the conception of Christ, yes, but this is not like that. We are dealing in souls here, not vessels.”

Sam pushed himself upright from Dean’s shoulder, but let his brother keep a close arm wrapped around his shoulders. “Cas, are you saying that the Holy Spirit knocked up my soul?”

Dean couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up at Sam’s blatant summation or Cas’ shocked look at his humanization of something held so obviously sacred. “Jesus, Sam….”

“In a manner of speaking,” Cas finally admitted. “Yes, I suppose that’s…accurate.”

“This is nuts,” Dean exploded. “Do you two realize what you’re saying?”

Sam looked down at himself, to where his hand was still nestled protectively over his midsection. “Nuts is kind of what we do, Dean,” he said.

Dean stared at him, disbelieving of how his brother was just taking this all in stride. “Sammy, this is…beyond what we do. This is—I don’t even know what this is.” He rounded on Cas. “And how did it happen anyway?”

Cas ignored the thinly veiled threat of violence in Dean’s tone and reached tentatively forward again. “May I?” he asked Sam, brushing the tips of his fingers at the edge of Sam’s hand.

Sam dropped his hand slowly and Cas moved in. The moment his palm flattened against Sam’s belly a jolt went through Sam and he flailed momentarily until one hand came in contact with Dean’s thigh and squeezed down.

“Cas! Goddammit!” Dean snapped.

“It’s all right, Dean,” Cas said calmly, moving his palm minutely like he was feeling for something. “The…child…is just reacting to my grace.”

“O-okay,” Dean said skeptically. He leaned forward to peer into Sam’s face. “Sam, you doin’ okay?

Sam nodded, quick and succinct, breathing deeply through his nose. “Yeah. It just feels…really weird. Cas?”

Cas readjusted his exploring touch and looked up at Dean. “Dean, I need to feel you.”

“Sorry, Cas, I’m a one-Sammy type of guy,” Dean said caustically and Sam snorted. If Dean could still crack a joke then he wasn’t totally freaking out. Yet. Which was good.

Cas looked momentarily confused, but then smiled that tiny smile of understanding that nevertheless always managed to make him look like a smug git.

“No, Dean. I need to touch your soul.”

Dean pulled a face. “Aww, man…not that gut digging stuff you did with that kid and Sam when he was soulless. ‘Cause that looked—painful.” He gave an involuntary shudder.

“No, nothing so invasive,” Cas said. “I just need to detect your aura.”

The angel kept his hand on Sam and pressed the other against Dean’s chest. It felt warm, almost hot, and Dean squirmed a little. Cas stayed like that for a moment, eyes drifting closed, head tilting a fraction to the left as if he were listening for some sound. When he reopened his eyes, he looked back at Dean.

“The two of you have copulated…intensely, recently?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dean jerked away, launching off the bed and running his hand over his hair before pacing away toward the kitchenette. He turned to glare at Cas. “None of your damn business if we did.”

Cas gave Dean a frustrated frown and turned to Sam. Sam ducked his head a tiny bit, eyes flicking up and to the left of Cas’s ear, to avoid the intensity in the angel’s gaze. 

“Yeah. Last night—.” Sam cleared his throat. “The hunt. It—I didn’t—.”

“Sam, stop.” Dean came back across the room to put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and squeeze hard. His voice was suddenly soft like Cas had heard it only a handful of times before and always only when he was talking about Sam. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It could have as easily been me.”

“What happened?” Cas asked.

Dean cast him a stern look. “Thing just got a little too real is all.”

“I screwed up,” Sam blurted, “and you….”

“You nearly died,” Cas finished, looking up at Dean with wide eyes. 

“But I didn’t,” Dean said firmly, fingers massaging into the base of Sam’s neck. “And, yeah, things got a little hot and heavy afterward. Emotional outlet and all that. Ya know? Close encounters with the scythe-kind will do that to you, but what the hell does any of that have to do with Sam being…pregnant.”

Cas sat back on his haunches, pulling his hand away from Sam reluctantly. “Sophia is attracted to purity, hence the virgin birth. If I were to hazard a guess—and that is all it would be—I would say that the intensity of your union created an emotional purity that attracted her attention.”

“Why now?” Sam asked. “It’s not like it’s the first time. And I thought we…. You know, because we’re brothers….” Sam turned his head away. “I kinda figured we would be about the furthest thing from pure.”

“Sam.” Cas gave him a pained look. “You have been to Heaven. On more than one occasion. The two of you are soul mates, sharing a profound love and devotion to one another. It is of no interest to God or Heaven what gender you are, or how you are related. Love is love.” He leaned forward a little again, putting a hand on Sam’s knee and looking up at Dean. “I have walked this earth for a very long time and have encountered a love as pure as yours fewer times that I can count on one hand. You are unique. Perhaps that is why she chose you.”

“But chose me for what, Cas?” Sam’s hand had crept back to spread over his middle and the fingers of his other were knotted with Dean’s at his shoulder. “What exactly is going on here?”

“When Sophia is…inspired, she creates a monument to that inspiration,” Cas explained hesitantly.

“Monument?” Dean was glowering now, fingers locked so tight around Sam’s that they were starting to cramp.

“A living monument,” Cas continued slowly, “to stand the test of eternity.”

“And what could do that?”

“An angel.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “Wait…. You mean Sam’s…? But how is that even possible? Don’t angels just, I d’know, _appear_ or something? They’re not  _born_. And certainly not from two humans.”

Cas tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Not under normal circumstances, and not without assistance, no. But with divine intervention? Yes.”

“So, you’re saying Christ was God’s love child?” Dean quipped, but it was brittle and fractured at the edges, a slip-sliding effort to hang onto a reality that quickly spiraling out of his control.

Cas frowned. “Christ was the ultimate monument of God’s love for mankind.”

“Oh, for—!” Dean threw his hands up and turned away. “This is cyclical! And it still doesn’t answer how or why _Sam._ ”

“Not just Sam,” Cas corrected. “You _and_ Sam.”

“Dean,” Sam’s voice was soft, a little distracted.

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, dragged a hand across his mouth. “Yeah, Sammy.”

“Does it…does it really matter?”

Dean head came up. “What?”

“Does it really matter how or why?” Sam asked in a small voice.

“The hell, Sam!” Dean exploded. “Of course if matters! The only way to solve this is like anything else we do. We gotta understand it.”

“Solve it,” Sam said slowly. “You mean get rid of it.”

“Well, yeah, Sam. That’s what I mean. It’s not like you can—.” Dean drew up short when his gaze connected with Sam’s stricken, pale face. His gut squeezed tight in apprehension, and his arms went limp at his sides. “Sam, no. You can’t mean you want….”

Sam met Dean’s gaze head on, and he knew his older brother could see the answer to that question written there plain as day. Sam couldn’t explain it, but as he spread his hands across the flat plane of his belly and felt the fullness inside him, he knew there was only one way to deal with this, and it wasn’t to ‘get rid’ of it. 

The electrical storm had calmed to a kind of soft rumbling like distant thunder and was sending vibrations through his blood that were warming his entire body. His heart felt like it was straining against the confines of his rib cage, wanting to expand enough to fill the entire room and then keep going to cover the whole world. 

It was the same feeling he got after Dean climaxed inside him, buried so deep it was hard to tell where one of them started and the other ended, and they would lay together for a few timeless minutes, wrapped around each other, synching their bodies back together, setting their hearts by each other again like clocks that had gotten slightly off and needed reset. It was the feeling Sam had known all his life: that his brother was his whole world, and without him there was no point to his existence. Sam had the instinctive feeling that what was inside him was symbolic of all of that, like Cas said, but more than that it _was_ him and Dean. Their love created it. It was made of them, part of them. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy that.

“Sam?” Cas looked worryingly into the younger Winchester’s face.

Sam took a deep breath. “So…what do we do?”

Cas’ eyes sliced to Dean who still stood stricken across the room and then back to Sam. He reached out to take Sam’s hands. “You do not have to do this, Sam. It is a gift, but there is no consequence in refusing it. Like any angel, it can be cast out by its vessel.”

“No. No, I-I want to.”

“Sam….” Dean’s voice was broken, torn down to a bare whisper of sound, echoes of loss already reverberating in it because nothing— _nothing_ —they had ever had to do with Heaven or Hell had ever turned out well for them. All Dean could see was the Trials all over again, tearing down his baby brother and grinding him into nothing because there wasn’t enough of him left from the last time.

“Sam, this won’t be easy,” Cas warned.

“Is it ever?” Sam asked with only a hint of derision.

Cas shook his head, a sad smile lifting at the corner of his mouth. “No. No, I suppose it’s not.”

“So, tell me what happens,” Sam said, mustering his determination, trying not to see his brother out of the corner of his eye—how he was hanging by some invisible hook, body sagging in defeat, muscles lax with resignation. “How does this work?”

“The entity,” Cas began, but amended himself, “the child…will take its nourishment from your soul.”

“It’s going to feed on him,” Dean said flatly, coming a little alive now with petulant anger, hands on his hips, fingers digging in painfully to keep from balling into fists and hitting whatever he could reach. “Well, that’s just great.” 

“It was born of your love, and that is what will sustain it,” Cas answered.

“Will I…?” Sam’s hand fluttered a little helplessly around his middle. “Will it show?”

“Not outwardly—not like that—anyway. This child is not human, not flesh and blood. It is energy, You will feel, like you said, ‘full,’ but there will be no physical signs.”

“Well, that’s good,” Dean snorted. “‘Cause that’d be goddamn difficult to explain.”

“Dean…..”

Sam recognized that tone in his brother’s voice. It was the one that escalated from annoyed to well and truly pissed-off in T minus nothing in the face of any situation that was going so far sideways on him that there was going to be no saving them from it without a miracle or huge stroke of luck. The Winchester luck was nearly as renowned, though, as their penchant for attracting the one-time-only-worst-of-the-wierd-shit, only it never seemed like that when they were neck deep in whatever was about to maim/kill/injure/possess/torture them. 

“Dean, it’ll be okay,” Sam said.

“Like hell,” Dean spat and turned away again.

Sam didn’t flinch. He’d expected the reaction after all. This was classic Dean. When they were threatened—when _Sam_ was threatened—Dean reacted with cold hard fury. It had kept them alive for years, so Sam couldn’t fault him on it. He turned back to Cas.

“How long?”

“A year to the day,” Cas said.

“And when it’s time to-to be born?”

Cas squeezed Sam’s hands reassuringly. “I will be there. I will take care of it.”

“And after?” Dean asked, voice fallen to a sudden pained murmur. “What then?”

Cas straightened but kept a hand on Sam’s shoulder to try and ease his trembling. “I will take the child to Heaven where it will take its place beside its brothers and sisters.”

“And that’s it?” Dean asked, anger backing his voice again, hurt simmering underneath it. “Things just go back to normal? Sam carries this-this _child_ , gives birth to it, and then you just _take it away_?”

Cas flinched under Dean’s deadly quiet rage. “It will have no corporeal form. It cannot exist without a vessel. You forget, I think,” Cas gestured to himself, his rumpled and over-worn suit and trench coat, and perpetually mussed hair, “that this is not my true form. We are creatures of light and energy. We must have a vessel to house us to walk this earth.”

“Dean, it’s okay,” Sam said again, trying to forestall the full on attack he could see building in Dean’s eyes, in the tense line of his body. “I’ll be fine—.”

“No, Sam!” Dean slammed the flat of his hand into the table beside him, bumping it a few inches across the floor with the force of his strike. “No. That’s not enough. That’s not enough for me.”

“Dean?”

Sam’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dean swore viciously and swung away, rubbing his hand across his hair and bracing himself in the doorway of the kitchenette. His head dropped down and his voice was scraped and raw when he spoke,

“Sam, we’ve done shit—so much shit—in the name of God and saving the world and-and stopping the end of fucking everything. When do we get something back? Huh? When is it our turn?” He looked over his shoulder at Sam, eyes red rimmed and wet. “What’s it for, Sammy? Why do this?”

Sam gave a little shake of his head, eyebrows fluttering upward for a brief moment. “B-Because it’s _us_ , Dean.”

Dean stared at Sam for the space of a painful heartbeat, then covered his nose and mouth with a hand to catch the sob that lurched out of him, and went into the bathroom and shut the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"This isn’t just tired. This is exhausted. This is run ragged. This is the fucking Trials all over again!”_

_Six months later…_

 

Sam made it six months, and Cas lied about there being no physical signs.

“I’m taking you home, Sammy.” 

Dean gave Sam’s shoulder another downward push, this one a little more forceful than the last, trying to get him into the Impala’s passenger seat. Whether he gave in or his shaking knees just wouldn’t hold him up anymore, Sam dropped into the seat and let Dean close the door after him.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Sam protested as his brother slid in behind the wheel. “I’m just tired.”

“Oh, you’re fucking fine, all right,” Dean agreed with a cruel grin. “You only passed out in the diner bathroom.”

Sam couldn’t counter that one. He had the gash and goose egg on his head to prove it. 

One minute he’d been standing in front of the urinal doing his business—with a bit of a headache left over from, well, the whole last week if he was honest, true—and the next he was blinking blood out of his eyes, and Dean’s savagely worried face was slowly swimming into focus. He was actually lucky Dean had wandered in after him because 1) it was pretty embarrassing to get caught unconscious on a public bathroom floor with your junk still hanging out of your pants and 2) head wounds bled like a bitch and of all the breakfast crowd in the diner that morning, Dean was probably the only one equipped not to freak out at the sight of the warm, sticky red pool on the tiles around Sam’s head. Which is not to say that Dean didn’t freak out in his own way with his own particular brand of creative epithets that turned the air in the bathroom a stunning shade of aquamarine.

Dean whipped the Impala out onto the street, jerking the wheel when her ass-end skidded a little from his abuse of the accelerator. Their hotel was on the highway and Dean headed that direction, revving the engine harder than was strictly necessary. The hostess inside had given them directions to the nearest clinic after Dean had convinced her an ambulance wasn’t necessary, and Sam hoped no one noticed they’d turned in the opposite direction. He definitely needed at least a couple of stitches, but Dean’s steady hand and their suture kit would be plenty adequate to the task.

Sam held a towel with a half melted bag of ice to his head, tried to ignore the roaring in his ears from the headache that had tripled in intensity, and made an attempt at rationality with Dean.

“Dean, we’re already here, we’ve got a room, we know what’s going on, so let’s just finish this. I can take a nap. I didn’t sleep well, I guess. I’ll be fine after some shut-eye.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t slept well in weeks, and this isn’t just tired. This is exhausted. This is run ragged. _This_ is the fucking Trials all over again!”

“Dean, it’s not that bad—.”

Dean thumped his palm against the steering wheel. “Dammit, Sammy. I was there. I saw you…slide into that-that _pit_.” He pulled an angry hand down his face, drawing out his bottom lip for a second and pinching it in frustration between finger and thumb. “Jesus, Sam, it nearly killed you.”

Sam frowned across the space between them. Dean hadn’t been happy about this from the beginning, but he didn’t see a reason for this full-on freak-out his brother was having.

“Dean,” he tried again. “It is _not_ that bad.”

“Really?” Dean lifted his brows, glancing at Sam for a second. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Been paying any attention when you shave that ugly mug in the morning? ‘Cause you haven’t been sleeping, and you haven’t been eating, and it shows, man.”

Sam shrugged a little uncomfortably. “I just haven’t been all that hungry, and just because I don’t pack in a full days worth of the FDA’s recommended calorie intake in one sitting doesn’t mean I’m not eating.”

Dean rolled his eyes. At least that was something, Sam thought. He’d purposely needled Dean’s eating habits to get a reaction.

“You’re not eating enough to keep a friggin’ rabbit alive, much less eating for…two,” Dean said, waving a loose hand in Sam’s general direction.

“And what exactly would you consider soul-food, Dean? Since that’s what it’s sustaining itself on,” Sam snapped.

Dean stared at him for a moment, then went back to glaring at the road. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

The last few miles to the hotel went by in silence, Dean brooding behind the wheel and Sam fending off the queasiness from blood loss with his forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window.

Dean was still simmering when they got back to the room, but his hands belied the thunder still in his eyes when he steadied Sam into the room, propped him against the headboard on the bed farthest from the door, and began gently cleaning the blood from his forehead and cheek.

His hands didn’t shake when they threaded the suture needle to put four precise stitches in the gash at Sam’s hairline, even though they wanted to. His little brother’s pallor was not just from blood loss. Even though Sam couldn’t seem to see it, he was losing ground to whatever he was allowing to live inside him. His usually tanned skin had lost its healthy color even if it hadn’t gone grey yet. His normally sharp features were growing ever more acute with the darkening circles under his eyes and the sinking hollows beneath his cheekbones. His already lean frame was losing what little bulk he’d managed to regain, and Dean could feel the whole of his little brother slipping away from him all over again.

He thumbed gently at one of those bold cheekbones and Sam’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey.” Sam smiled, slow and sleepy, the sudden waspishness of earlier forgotten under his brother’s tender hands, and Dean felt a surge of grief rise up in his chest at the realization that he might not have that smile six months down the road. Maybe even less.

“Hey…” Sam said again, brows drawing together. He lifted a hand to Dean’s face to mimic his gesture, but his thumb came away wet. “What’s this for?”

Dean pulled gently out of Sam’s grip, dragged the back of his hand across his eyes and reached for an adhesive bandage to cover the fresh stitches.

“Dean?”

He smoothed down the edges of the bandage, avoiding Sam’s gaze until long fingers wrapped around his wrist and tugged his hand down to rest in Sam’s lap.

“Dean.”

Dean sighed, heavily—dramatically—pouring annoyance into it so that maybe Sam would just let it go like he usually did when his big brother started to get twitchy and bitchy and it became obvious he wasn’t going to talk about whatever was bothering him. But Sam held on, face turning soft in that intensely earnest way he got that made his mouth tick down at the very corners even though he was kind of smiling and made his eyes all clear and bright and hopeful. 

Dean didn’t give in to what _he_ needed very often. He did it for Sammy all the time—could hardly say ‘no’ to the kid—and he did it for just about anyone else in need who crossed their path. But for himself, he did little more than what would keep him ticking over from day to day, like giving the Impala a scant tune-up from time to time just to keep her running even though he’d have hollered ten kinds of hell if anyone treated his baby like that.

Dean was close, so close for once, in just taking what he needed that the little tug Sam repeated at his wrist was plenty to bring him forward, curling down to rest his head on Sam’s thigh. A few seconds later he pushed his arms back between the pillows and Sam and wrapped himself tight around his brother’s waist. Sam rested his hand between Dean’s shoulder blades for a minute and then brought it up to scratch gently into the short hair at the back of his skull, his fingertips making tiny circular motions.

“Where’s this going, Sammy?” Dean whispered past the lump in his throat. “Because all I see is you sacrificing yourself for nothing.”

Sam sighed, long and soft, and his fingers momentarily tightened against Dean’s scalp. “It’s not for nothing, Dean. It’s for us. A piece of us that will go on for all eternity…when we will not.”

Dean pressed his cheek closer into Sam’s thigh, squeezed his eyes tighter shut. “Is that it, Sam? You want a legacy or something?”

Sam’s fingers paused in his hair for a second while he considered before he began his gentle stroking again. “Yes. I do.”

“Does it matter so much?”

“It did to you, once.”

Dean bit his lip against a retort and turned his face further into the dark hollow of Sam’s belly; because he wasn’t wrong. Once, long ago, Dean had dreamed of giving something to the future. He’d even made an honest effort of it with Ben and Lisa until he realized how very broken he was and that he was fit for no one and nothing more than he was for Sam who was equally broken inside. The two of them had nothing to offer the future but the thin margin of safety they bought it, paid for with their own sweat, blood, and broken bones.

Sam pushed his hand deeper into Dean’s hair, curled forward to kiss the bared skin behind his ear and whispered, “I’m not hurting, Dean. No matter what it looks like, I’m not suffering; and I want this…so much. For us…for you.”

Dean pressed an inch closer, wanting to crawl right inside his brother where that… _thing_ …had taken up residence, and tell it to get out because Sammy belonged to no one but Dean, body and soul. 

He had never been able to deny Sam what he wanted, though. Ever. 

So, he just curled as close as he could and let the tears come. And if, somewhere in the back of his mind, he whispered a vengeful prayer and a promise against who or what ever took Sam away from him over this, well, there was no one out there to hear it anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Tears were probably called for, or maybe even some kind of rite or benediction, on such an occasion as this; but Dean had nothing to give._

_Now…_

 

There were only two people allowed to touch Dean while he slept and walk away whole and intact, and one of them was pressed into his thighs, stomach, and chest and so hot that Dean had soaked through denim, t-shirt, and flannel alike with sweat.

“Cas?” Dean turned his head only enough to acknowledge the angel standing above him, not wanting to wake Sam whose even breathing Dean had long ago catalogued as Sammy’s-really-asleep vs. Sammy’s-playing-possum. “What’re you doin’ here?”

Cas moved around the bed to bring himself more in line with Dean’s vision and closer to Sam.

“It’s time.”

Dean lifted his head a fraction farther. “You mean…?”

“Yes. The child is ready to be born.”

Dean loosened his grip on Sam and pulled back reluctantly. Sam didn’t stir, even when Dean rolled him to his back to keep the cool air from chilling him where Dean had sweated through the back of his shirt, too. 

“How can you tell?” Dean asked.

Sam didn’t look any different, just as gaunt and weak and fragile as he had a few hours ago when Dean had laid down with him.

“I can hear it,” Cas answered.

“But shouldn’t he be,” Dean flapped a vague hand, “I d’know, in labor or something?”

Cas smiled, that damned condescending smile of compassion-for-the-very-dense that Dean wondered sometimes if he kept in reserve for use just on the elder Winchester.

“No, Dean. The only pain he will feel will be when I extract the child.”

“Extract?” Dean made face. “You make it sound like a damn lab experiment.”

“Deliver?” Cas offered. “I suppose calling me a mid-wife in this situation would not be far from a good description either.”

“Christ…” Dean swore and scrubbed wearily at his face. “Just—what do we have to do?”

“It would probably be best to wake him, let him prepare himself. It won’t be comfortable,” Cas said.

“What exactly are you going to do?” Dean asked, body already tensing and leaning forward to shield his little brother.

“I will separate the child from his soul.”

“And it’s going to hurt him?”

“It has become a part of him—.”

“He.”

“What?”

Dean sighed and scowled, pained gaze roaming over Sam’s slack, pallid face and brushing a strand of hair back from his cheek. “‘It’ is a he.”

Cas stared for a moment, dumbstruck. “Then… _he_ has become a part of Sam and separating them will cause them both pain, yes.”

“But he’ll be all right, right? After?”

Cas turned his gaze down to Sam, surveyed his frail and nearly insubstantial form. “He is weaker than I would have expected,” Cas admitted. “I cannot say for certain if there will be enough left to sustain him.”

“Enough? Enough of what?” Dean demanded.

“His soul,” Cas said as if this were obvious. “The child has been sustaining itself on Sam’s soul which is why,” he frowned at them both, “I am surprised to find him in this condition as strong as his soul has always been.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t strong enough this time!” Dean snapped.

“But he gains his strength from you,” Cas said simply.

Dean blanched, jaw going slack. “What?”

“His soul is fed by your love, as is yours by his. It’s what makes you soul mates, Dean,” Cas replied. “So, I do not understand this.”

“Jesus Christ, Sammy….” Dean sat up and turned away, covering his face with his hands. 

“Dean?” Cas’ hand wavered in the air, reaching out in an aborted attempt to comfort a pain he was far from understanding.

“I didn’t—,” Dean started, but choked on a heaving breath to restrain a sob. “I’ve been so angry with him this whole time. So mad at him for taking this all on himself and not even… _listening_ to me when I tried to tell him what it would do to him, and it turns out,” Dean dropped his hands, slumped forward on his knees, “it’s all my fault.”

“Dean, you shouldn’t—,” Cas started.

“D’n…?”

Sam’s sleep slurred voice drew Dean’s shoulders up tight in sudden guilt, but he turned around anyway, leaning down and settling close to his brother’s side.

“Yeah, Sam. I’m here.”

Sam grimaced a little and his hand moved ineffectually toward his middle. Dean put out a tentative hand, spreading his fingers wide over Sam’s belly. It seemed to soothe him a little. He sighed.

“’S time, Dean,” he murmured without opening his eyes.

“Yeah, I know. Cas is here.”

“Feel so…full. Dean—.” Sam moaned a little and his shoulders made a motion like they would hitch upward if he had the strength.

“Does it hurt, Sam?” Dean asked, eyes darting dangerously to Cas.

“No, just…it’s too much, Dean,” Sam’s voice broke and a  tear leaked from the corner of his eye. “I can’t— I can’t hold him anymore. Dean, please, I—.”

“Shh. Shhhh. Sammy, it’s all right. You don’t have to. Cas is going to take care of it. Everything’s going to be fine.” Dean looked up at Cas, eyes desperate. “Do it. Now.”

Cas eased onto the edge of the bed, shedding his coat and rolling up his sleeve. “Sam? Can you hear me?”

Sam mumbled something unintelligible in Cas’ general direction, and Cas took it as the only affirmative he was going to get.

“Sam. I am going to—deliver the child now. Please prepare yourself. It will be painful. When you are ready, we will begin,” Cas said. He cast a glance at Dean’s destroyed expression and added in a gentle tone, “I will be as quick as I can, I promise.”

Sam said nothing, but his fingers curled in repeated, tiny gripping motions against the blanket, and Dean moved his hand from Sam’s midsection to the hand nearest him and laced their fingers together so tightly Sam’s knuckles cracked.

“‘M sorry, Dean,” Sam mumbled.

“No. Jesus, no, Sammy,” Dean dropped his forehead against Sam’s, almost gasped at the searing heat of his skin. “I’m sorry, little brother. So sorry. I should’ve—I didn’t mean—. Dammit I love you, Sam. Always have.”

“…’Know it, D’n.”

“Just don’t forget it. Okay?”

“Sam? Are you prepared?” Cas asked quietly.

Sam made no sound or move to answer save a pressure against Dean’s fingers. Christ, if he was that weak…. Dean clamped down on that train of thought and swallowed hard. He gave Cas a quick nod.

“Do it.”

Cas spread his hand over Sam’s belly, paused while the familiar celestial glow built between the connection and then leaned in, hand passing through cloth and flesh like sinking into wet sand.

Sam hadn’t made a sound above a whisper in weeks, so the raw agonized scream that tore from his throat as his back bowed in an attempt to escape the pain brought instant tears to Dean’s eyes and even made Cas flinch.

Dean put a hand on Sam’s chest and held him to the bed. Tears were streaming down Sam’s face and the scream had mutated into hoarse, choking gasps interspersed with sharp, high whimpers.

“Jesus, Cas…hurry,” Dean begged. “Please.”

Cas either didn’t hear him or ignored him as his hand sank deeper and his eyes closed in concentration. He twisted his arm slightly and Sam let out another piercing scream that Dean answered with a fierce growl and bitten epithet.

“Fuck! Cas, get it done!”

Cas still gave no indication of hearing him and did not withdraw, but Sam tensed suddenly and then went utterly still, body going limp and lax and sagging into the mattress.

“Sam?” Dean pressed his hand harder against Sam’s chest, trying to feel a heartbeat, to detect even the slightest rise and fall of breath. He felt nothing. “Sammy!”

Dean reached across Sam and threaded his fingers into the damp, dark tangle of waves at the nape of his neck and pressed his cheek against Sam’s so that their tears mingled and slid to the pillow below.

“Dammit, Sammy, don’t you let go. Don’t you dare!” Dean whispered fiercely. “I love you so damn much. I know I don’t tell you near enough, and I shouldn’t wait until all Hell’s broken loose and one or both of us is about to die to tell you how I really feel, little brother. I need to tell you…every day—every damn minute—how much I love you. And I’m gonna, Sammy, I swear it. Just…don’t let go. ‘Cause I can’t ever tell you again if you let go.”

“Dean, I’m losing….” Cas’ voice was strained. “He’s slipping—.”

“No, he’s not,” Dean snarled, pressing his face close into Sam’s throat. “You’re not going anywhere, Sammy. Do you hear? You listening to me, kiddo? I’ve been selfish as hell, and I know it, dragging you back from the edge time and time again when all you wanted was peace. But I’m gonna do it again, little brother, because I can’t live without you. That’s the God’s honest truth—if He even gives a shit anymore.”

Dean pressed his lips against Sam’s still too warm skin and tasted the salt of tears. “Go ahead and cry if it hurts, Sammy. I’ll be here to make it better, but you’re not going anywhere I can’t follow.”

Dean lost track of the next few minutes, with his face still buried against Sam’s neck. He didn’t see Cas start to pull back, or the brilliant light that exploded from Sam’s body and flooded the room to every corner, chasing away the layered shadows of decades. He didn’t see the radiant light reflected in Cas’ eyes or the profound look of reverence on his face as he cupped his hands close around the effulgent soul of a newborn angel.

He only became aware again when the pulse point beneath his lips throbbed once unsteadily and then again and finally found a rhythm to settle into. He blinked and raised his head. 

“Sammy…?” His voice was rusted through with the kind of emotion that strips away everything less than itself and leaves it behind like so much dishonest flotsam on the tide. “Sammy, you with me?”

Sam moved his tongue around in his mouth, wet his lips, and dragged his eyes open, squinting at the brightness of the room.

“Dean?”

Dean’s breath rushed out of him like waves sweeping out to sea. “Yeah. Sammy. I’m here. I’m right here. You okay?”

Dean looked over at Cas, finally took note of the incredible light in the room and the sudden pressure in the air that felt like waves of sound pounding against the inside of his head just beyond the edge of human hearing.

“The angels are singing,” Cas explained, and offered his hands forward, holding with infinite care the blazing new soul.

Tears were probably called for, or maybe even some kind of rite or benediction, on such an occasion as this; but Dean had nothing to give. His tears were spent on Sam, since all he could see in front of him was loss—one more piece of themselves given to the higher cause. Because no matter how strange or heavenly the conception, Sam had found a way to connect with this…life, and it would be taken from him, like so much else in their lives. 

Dean put an arm under Sam’s shoulders and propped him up so he could see. Sam reached out a hand, trembling, to touch the tips of Cas’ fingers, to feel the heated glow that had been inside him only moments ago.

“Cas, can I…?”

Cas shook his head gently. “My grace will sustain him a short time, but I must take him home.”

Sam nodded, dropped his hand. He tipped his head back to look at his brother. “It was worth it, Dean…wasn’t it? He’s beautiful. Isn’t he?”

Tears threatened Dean again at the tremulous and uncertain sound in his brother’s voice. He wanted more than anything to believe it _was_ worth it, to be able to see the bigger picture and be satisfied in the knowledge that there would be a piece of them out there—wherever that was—to last all the ages of the world and beyond. But none of that mattered to him. What mattered to him was in his arms, clinging to him like hope, and asking for an affirmation Dean couldn’t begin to find. He kissed the top of Sam’s head and tucked it into his shoulder, holding him tight.

“Yeah, Sam, it’s… _he’s_ beautiful,” Dean whispered. “And perfect. Just like you…just like us.”

Sam nodded and closed his eyes again, resting back in his brother’s arms.

Cas stood up slowly, cradling the new life close to his heart. He nodded to Dean.

“I’ll be back.”

And he was gone in a flutter of wingbeats, leaving the room silent and dim and empty.

Dean closed his eyes against the dark and rested his head against Sam’s. He readjusted his hold, pulling him in closer, listening to Sam’s breathing even out into sleep while his muscles slowly went slack and loose, letting his battered body relax into Dean’s protective embrace.

“Love you, Sam. Always.”

Sam only made a sleepy hum in the back of his throat, but that was enough for Dean. 

Always had been. Always would be.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But the light in his brother’s eyes as he held close, in a way that felt familiar just by watching, the real flesh and blood personification of what they had created together, made Sam believe for a heartbeat that—God or no God—miracles might be real things after all._

Sam was pouring over an ancient Greek text when the banging knock came at the iron front door of the bunker.

“I’ll get it!” Dean yelled from the back hallway and came jogging through the library before Sam could even scoot his chair back. “Just. Sit.”

Sam sighed with profound annoyance and shoved his hair out of his face. “Dean, I am not an invalid. I can answer a damn door.”

But Dean had already gone and Sam could hear him taking the stairs two at a time.

“Who is it?” Sam called.

“It’s Cas, and, uh….”

_Cas._

Sam tried not to flinch. They hadn’t seen the angel since the…birth, and try as he might, Sam couldn’t fully bury the pain of loss from that afternoon. He’d spent an entire year preparing himself for the moment Cas vanished with his and Dean’s ‘child’, but all the logic in the universe didn’t help fill the emptiness left inside him.

He’d slept for three days straight, Dean said, and woke with little memory of those few moments except a very bright light and incredible infusing warmth against his fingertips, and the pressure of a raging ocean’s worth of sound against his eardrums.

Dean had let him be for a week, let him live inside himself with the pain, and just very gently and insistently nursed him back to health. Dean was more solicitous than he had ever been in his own very Dean-like way, which made Sam wonder if he’d taken another impromptu trip to Death’s door and been invited into the sitting room this time, though Dean never actually said.

Dean mourned in his own way, too—for different reasons, reasons that had to do much more with seeing Sam suffer for something he himself had not been able to grasp than the actual loss of a ‘child’ he could not accept or know. It came out mostly in Dean’s just staring into the between space at odd moments, and then Sam would catch a fleeting sadness tugging at the edges of his eyes and the corner of his mouth. 

Dean went out one afternoon—god knew where—and came back with a sun catcher. It was nothing special, just bits of metal and cut glass and polished stone, obviously hand-made; but when he helped Sam up the stairs to the watchtower built above the bunker and hung the catcher in one of the windows and wiped away the grime from the glass with the sleeve of his shirt—the sun came in and caught it and cast a blinding glow through the whole space.

They both stood in the silence, wrapped in each other, and Sam cried.

Sam regained his strength over the next few weeks, trying studiously hard to build himself back up as quickly as possible because he hated the helpless, panicked look he caught in his brother’s eyes when he thought Sam wasn’t looking. He wasn’t strong enough to hunt, yet, but the time was coming soon, and maybe the work would help them both start to forget.

“S-sam? You need to….” 

Dean’s voice faltered and set off alarm bells in Sam’s head. He shoved his chair back and swung around the door, out of the library.

“Dean?”

Dean was standing on the far side of the ‘war’ room at the foot of the stairs with his back to Sam. Cas was on the bottom step, smiling in a way Sam had never seen on him before.

“Hey, Sam,” he said. “I forgot my coat.”

“Forgot your…?” Sam scowled and came across the room, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

He was shaking.

“Dean?” Sam pulled at his brother’s shoulder, turning him, and his heart lodged in his throat when he saw the bundle in Dean’s arms.

Sam dropped his hand, backed up a step, darted a painfully hopeful look at Cas.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” Cas said. “It was harder than I anticipated finding the right vessel.”

“V-Vessel?” Sam stammered.

Cas inclined his head to the bundle of blanket in Dean’s tightly clasped arms. “The child was going to die, or live with no quality of life, so we repurposed him.”

“Christ, Cas, you make him sound like a piece of furniture,” Dean finally found his voice again, though it was rough with unshed tears.

“Him?” Sam breathed, daring to lean in. “It really is a boy?”

Cas nodded.

Dean took a step forward, unconsciously bouncing the small bundle the tiniest bit and rocking his body in a rhythm Sam’s whole being remembered from years ago and countless nights left alone in the encroaching dark by their father; but everything was always all right in the safety and sway of his big brother’s arms.

“Come look, Sammy,” Dean said quietly, pulling back the edge of the blanket.

Sam leaned in over Dean’s shoulder, swallowing back a childish whimper of hope, and looked down into a pair of sea-foam-in-sunlight green eyes that were eerily familiar and crowned by a thick shock of unruly dark hair.

“You _found_ this baby, Cas?” Sam asked in disbelief.

“I was looking for the perfect combination,” he said quietly.

“I’d say you found it,” Dean said, chucking the baby gently under his chin and nosing into his soft hair.

Sam struggled with himself for a moment, trying to bring to bear all the powers of logic at his disposal as to why this was a bad idea. They—he—wasn’t prepared to raise a child, and no amount of wishing or wanting would change that. Their lifestyle was completely unsuitable and even if the bunker was the safest place in the world, it still wasn’t a decent environment for a child to be brought up in in the company of two men broken in ways that made them ten kinds of dangerous to anything living and most things dead.

But the light in his brother’s eyes as he held close, in a way that felt familiar just by watching, the real flesh and blood personification of what they had created together, made Sam believe for a heartbeat that—God or no God—miracles might be real things after all.

“Whatever you believe is broken, Sam,” Cas said gently, as if reading his mind. “Give him the chance to heal.”

It was all the urging Sam needed. He held out his arms and Dean immediately placed the baby boy there, cupping the tiny head with its perfectly mussed dark curls in his broad calloused palm. The other he reached to cradle Sam’s cheek and wipe away the tears that had begun to fall.

“Thank you, Sam,” Dean whispered thickly. “Thank you for believing when I couldn’t. Thank you for…this.”

Sam didn’t have a prayer of speaking through the tears or past the lump in his throat, so he didn’t even try.

It was a long while of marveling over tiny fingers and toes, and eyes that seemed to shine from within, and a little, pouty, bow-shaped mouth that Sam swore looked exactly like Dean’s, before they realized they were alone again; and longer still before they realized it had grown late and the sun had gone down. 

Because the bunker had a new light in it, and it would glow and grow stronger in the years to come, filling their lives with the kind of love they had only dreamed of once and allowed themselves in the dark whisper-quiet of secret nights. It was a love to stand the test of time and eternity, the rise and fall of men and mountains alike, and to shed light into the darkest places even until the end of all things.


End file.
